Murder Comes Calling Read Online Free

answer. I found the door unlocked, like at Ernest’s, and walked right in. Well, I didn’t have to go far. Barry was curled up in his study, his head mashed to a pulp. He’d been bludgeoned to death. A golf iron lay nearby, dripping with blood and brain matter. I must’ve just missed the killer.”
    “You went home to wash the handkerchief before going to Barry Burns’ place?”
    “Yes,” Malcolm said, hanging his head. “If I’d gone straight there I might have been in time to prevent his death.”
    “Or you might have become victim number five.”
    “True. That’s what might have happened to Valerie. You know, wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. Well, I went into the bathroom, wet a tissue, and wiped off the letters on Barry’s forehead, but these weren’t so legible because there wasn’t much left of his face. I flushed the tissue down the loo and called the police from the phone on his desk.”
    Rex grunted his disapproval. “And then?” he asked with increasing dread.
    “I went outside to wait for the police. That’s when I noticed that Vic Chandler’s door was open across the street. I sort of had a hunch, so I went over and entered his house. I felt as though I were living some awful nightmare. You have no idea … This time I had to go all the way upstairs. I didn’t get a whiff of chloroform this time—”
    “Chloroform?” Rex asked in surprise.
    “I forgot to mention … In the first two houses, Ernest’s and Barry’s, I was aware of the smell of chloroform in the air. Faint, but unmistakable. You know, that sweet, sickly odour.”
    Rex didn’t really know. But then, he wasn’t a doctor. “What else might you have you forgotten to mention?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing else seemed unusual at the crime scenes other than the nature of the murders?” Rex prodded.
    “Not really. Everything appeared to have been left in good order—except for the bodies, I mean. No signs of ransacking or anything like that. Now that you mention it, though, I did notice a brochure tucked into Ernest’s waistband. I thought it an odd place to put it, but old people do odd things, don’t they? I only noticed it because he was lying on the floor and his cardigan had fallen open.”
    “What was on the brochure?” Rex asked.
    “From what I could see, it was advertising a timeshare in Marbella.”
    “Spain. Very nice. Anything else oot of place in the room or in the garage, or at Barry’s house before we go on?”
    “Nothing that sticks out,” Malcolm replied, shaking his head with conviction.
    “So, after you arrived at Vic Chandler’s house, you went upstairs …”
    “I did, and there was Vic Chandler in the bath.”
    “Dead, I take it.”
    “Indeed. In his birthday suit, the tub full of water.”
    “Drowned?”
    Malcolm shook his head again. “According to Dr. Hewitt, the pathologist who performed the autopsy and an erstwhile colleague of mine, drowning was not the cause of death. There was no water in the victim’s lungs and no asphyxia from a dry drowning. He was electrocuted.”
    “What with?”
    “An electric razor was found in the bath. These are older homes; well, over a quarter of a century old. Some of the wall sockets are not earthed. Two hundred and forty volts of electricity combined with water is a lethal combination. I’ve seen several deaths in my day caused by people dropping a radio in the bath or else standing up in one and switching on a light.”
    “I don’t suppose Vic Chandler could have electrocuted himself accidentally while shaving in the bath?”
    Malcolm shook his head with regret. “The letters …”
    “Written in blood on his forehead?”
    His friend nodded. “But his head was partially submerged and they were all but washed away. So I left well alone.”
    “Thank heaven for small mercies,” Rex said dryly.
    Malcolm responded with a wan smile. “Yes, that was a relief.”
    “But the police will never know what was written there if they don’t